Universal Gravitation

On a sheet of paper, describe in your own words: GRAVITY

Gravity is a very complex concept. A simplified definition: Gravity is the way masses communicate with each other.

Every mass in the universe reaches out to attract every other one, and every mass feels an attraction from every other one.

Life’s ultimate love story.

The idea that gravity extends throughout the universe is credited to Sir Isaac Newton ( ).

The legend goes that Newton was sitting under an apple tree, thinking about forces, and an apple fell and hit him on the head.

The real story suggests flying cats.

Newton stared at the moon in the evenings and struggled to fully understand why its path in the sky was curved.

The legend goes that Newton was sitting under an apple tree, thinking about the moon, and an apple fell and hit him on the head. Hence, so the story goes, Newton began applying the ideas of the gravity he felt on earth to the bigger objects in space.

Newton’s ideas of a universal gravitation was the key ingredient to confirming the Copernican theory posed by Nicolaus Copernicus in 1543.

Falling Moon

Newton also had an understanding that gravity was dependent on how close the objects were to each other.

Newton worked for almost 20 years on the gravitational relationship between two objects.

Newton didn’t publish his work because of his fear of ridicule and criticism. In addition, he still was uncertain about the validity of his mathematical proof.

It wasn’t until the 17 th century that Newton unfolded the mysteries of a mathematical process called calculus.

With calculus, he was able to complete the proofs of his findings of a universal gravitation.

With the strong urging from astronomer Edmund Halley ( ), Newton published his work and it has been used ever since.

Hair competition: Halley vs. Newton NewtonHalley